Posts Tagged ‘Laurie (L.C.) Lewis’

Laurie (L.C.) Lewis will always be a Marylander at heart—a weather-whining lover of crabs, American history, and the sea. She admits to being craft-challenged, particularly lethal with a glue gun, and a devotee of sappy movies. Her ninth published novel, her first romance novella, Sweet Water, was inspired by a visit to Oregon’s magnificent coastline, and time spent with Mother Eugenie, upon whom the character Mother Thomasine is based.

Using the pen name L.C. Lewis, she wrote the five volumes of her award-winning FREE MEN and DREAMERS historical fiction series, set against the backdrop of the War of 1812: Dark Sky at Dawn (2007), Twilight’s Last Gleaming (2008), Dawn’s Early Light (2009), Oh, Say Can You See? (2010), and In God is Our Trust, (2011).

She is currently completing a political suspense novel planned for a summer 2017 release, a re -release of a romantic comedy, and she’s working on another historical fiction novel for a 2018 release. She loves to hear from readers.

Matthew Grayken is young, successful, and dying, which is why he’s about to propose to a total stranger. He isn’t interested in love. He needs a caregiver, a companion, and someone to be his legal voice when he can no longer speak for himself.

Lonely, compassionate nurse Mikaela Compton is intrigued by Matt Grayken’s tender request, but when their friendly marriage turns into love, she rejects the inevitability of Matt’s death and prays for a miracle instead.

Mikaela succeeds in reigniting Matt’s will to fight, but his body is losing the battle, and her determination to save him causes her to betray the fundamental promise she made him–to help him die peaceably.

Their last hope at saving Matt’s life will require a sacrifice from each of them, and force them to decide how far out on a limb they’re willing to go for love.

After breakfast, they drove to Union Station and picked up Matt’s car. After dropping Mikaela’s car off, they took the Range Rover to go table shopping. Matt was so moved by the joy she found in sharing that small adventure that they spent the rest of the afternoon in the crisp late September air, strolling Georgetown’s curio shops, buying art prints and kitchen gadgets.

Mikaela pulled him into a Christmas shop bedecked with lights and steeped in the scent of balsam. Like radar, she zoned in on the trees laden with Christmas ornaments, some elegant, some merely for fun. She moved from tree to tree, swooning over one decoration after another. Matt used a variety of excuses to leave the store and wait for her down the street, but she clamped her hand over his arm and dragged him to a regally-bedecked twelve-foot tree that mocked his fear of spending Christmas in a pine box.

Mikaela dangled several whimsical ornaments before Matt’s eyes, swooning over each one before selecting a few. The more her enthusiasm bubbled, the harder he found it to breathe. He wondered if he’d live long enough to see the blasted baubles adorn a tree.

“You don’t love them.”

“Get whatever you like.” He heard the irritation in his voice and tried to mask it with a half-smile.

“Do you think these are gaudy? You probably grew up with an elegant tree?”

“Isn’t it a little early to be thinking about Christmas?” He batted a clay cupcake dangling from a silver cord. “If you need to do this now, why not just buy a matched set of gold balls?”

“Because these are memories.” Mikaela’s eyes brightened like the twinkle lights on the tree.

For the first time, he noticed what ornaments dangled from her left hand—a bride and groom, a heart, a plane, a helicopter, a taxi, the New York City skyline, and a tacky-looking crab ornament with “Baltimore” painted across it—mementoes of the short time they’d already spent together. A chill coursed through him as he realized the marital sentiment she was expressing.

Her other hand held an assortment of ornaments representing places they’d never been and things they’d never done. Mikaela had selected three balls painted with D.C. scenes—the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol. These were easy destinations mere blocks from the house. The other ornaments were completely random—a picnic table with tiny dishes and food set upon it, a movie theater ticket made from clay, a canoe, a bowling pin set, and a golden star.

He cocked his head sideways and drank in her slightly crooked smile, the gold flecks in her eyes, the whimsical mop of hair that flopped to the left. “But we’ve never—”

“But we will! We’ll make a list and do these things together.”

Her enthusiasm gave him the courage to likewise suspend medical reality and join in her denial. He found a pair of red lips and a puppy ornament. “What do you think? First kiss? And I think we should get a dog.”

“Uhhh. . . Okay on the lips, but we should discuss the matter before actually purchasing a living thing.” She held up a boat ornament and a pair of pot-bellied old timers seated in front of a TV.

Matt eyed them as a knot grew in his throat. “You and me in fifty years?”

“Eighty. No way I’m letting you look like that in fifty.”

He caught the sheen in her eyes, the denied tear she wiped away when grousing about catching a speck of glitter in her lashes, but he knew that they were living on wishes and dreams.

Laurie (L.C.) Lewis will always be a Marylander at heart—a weather-whining lover of crabs, American history, and the sea. She admits to being craft-challenged, particularly lethal with a glue gun, and a devotee of sappy movies. Her ninth published novel, her first romance novella, Sweet Water, was inspired by a visit to Oregon’s magnificent coastline, and time spent with Mother Eugenie, upon whom the character Mother Thomasine is based.

Using the pen name L.C. Lewis, she wrote the five volumes of her award-winning FREE MEN and DREAMERS historical fiction series, set against the backdrop of the War of 1812: Dark Sky at Dawn (2007), Twilight’s Last Gleaming (2008), Dawn’s Early Light (2009), Oh, Say Can You See? (2010), and In God is Our Trust, (2011).

She is currently completing a political suspense novel planned for a summer 2017 release, a re -release of a romantic comedy, and she’s working on another historical fiction novel for a 2018 release. She loves to hear from readers.

Matthew Grayken is young, successful, and dying, which is why he’s about to propose to a total stranger. He isn’t interested in love. He needs a caregiver, a companion, and someone to be his legal voice when he can no longer speak for himself.

Lonely, compassionate nurse Mikaela Compton is intrigued by Matt Grayken’s tender request, but when their friendly marriage turns into love, she rejects the inevitability of Matt’s death and prays for a miracle instead.

Mikaela succeeds in reigniting Matt’s will to fight, but his body is losing the battle, and her determination to save him causes her to betray the fundamental promise she made him–to help him die peaceably.

Their last hope at saving Matt’s life will require a sacrifice from each of them, and force them to decide how far out on a limb they’re willing to go for love.

“Because I don’t want to be the pitiful soul with only an attorney, billing hourly, as his voice. I want a wife with the legal power to speak for me when I can’t speak for myself and the personal connection no one else will challenge.”

“Like your parents when they come to take control of your care.”

“As well-intentioned as they’d be, yes. And I trust you.”

“You’d be pitting me against them.” She leaned back, but he was impressed that she wasn’t discounting everything he had said. “No. I would make my wishes clear. You would just enforce them when I no longer can.” He leaned farther forward, to close the distance between them, and looked straight into her eyes. “I know you’re alone, and I know money’s an issue. I can fix that. I have a lovely home that will be yours when I’m gone. And I’ll pay off your debts and provide tuition to medical school. You’ll be a doctor, Mikaela.”

Laurie (L.C.) Lewis will always be a Marylander at heart—a weather-whining lover of crabs, American history, and the sea. She admits to being craft-challenged, particularly lethal with a glue gun, and a devotee of sappy movies. Her ninth published novel, her first romance novella, Sweet Water, was inspired by a visit to Oregon’s magnificent coastline, and time spent with Mother Eugenie, upon whom the character Mother Thomasine is based.

Using the pen name L.C. Lewis, she wrote the five volumes of her award-winning FREE MEN and DREAMERS historical fiction series, set against the backdrop of the War of 1812: Dark Sky at Dawn (2007), Twilight’s Last Gleaming (2008), Dawn’s Early Light (2009), Oh, Say Can You See? (2010), and In God is Our Trust, (2011).

She is currently completing a political suspense novel planned for a summer 2017 release, a re -release of a romantic comedy, and she’s working on another historical fiction novel for a 2018 release. She loves to hear from readers.

In need of his own redemption, Noah Carter finally confronts his childhood hero, the once-beloved uncle who betrayed him. Instead of vengeance, he offers forgiveness, also granting Uncle John a most curious request—for Noah to work on the ramshackle farm of Agnes Deveraux Keller, a French WWII survivor with dementia.

Despite all Agnes has lost, she still has much to teach Noah. But the pair’s unique friendship is threatened when Tayte, Agnes’s estranged granddaughter, arrives to claim a woman whose circumstances and abilities are far different from those of the grandmother she once knew.

Items hidden in Agnes’s attic raise painful questions about Tayte’s dead parents, steeling Tayte’s determination to save Agnes, even if it requires her to betray the very woman she came to save, and the secret her proud grandmother has guarded for seventy years.

The issue strains the fragile trust between Tayte and Noah, who now realizes Tayte is fighting her own secrets, her own dragons. Weighed down by past guilt and failures, he feels ill-equipped to help either woman, until he remembers Agnes’s lessons about courage and love. In order to save Agnes, the student must now become the teacher, helping Tayte heal—for Agnes’s sake, and for his.

She smiled. “I am all they have. Being needed makes you brave. Sometimes we simply do what we must. But then, you know a bit about that as well, don’t you?”

Noah looked at his pocked arms. “You mean my scars?”

“From cigarettes??”

Noah’s lips pursed as he remembered the feel of the burns. “It was my father’s way of motivating me.”

“Beast.” It was spoken like a curse, and it made Noah smile. “The shame is his. Not yours.”

Noah undid the ties that fastened the three-inch-wide leather band worn over his wrist. Beneath it were rows of straight scars. “Not just his, Agnes. I did these myself.” He felt his face burn with shame.

Agnes leaned on her shovel and searched an unknown spot in the sky. “When the bombings ended, only one tree remained in the park near my house. Everyone said we should protect it and honor it. I went out at night and threw rocks at it. I pulled on its branches and tried to kill it because I thought, better I should kill it than wait for the dragons to return and destroy this one also.”

Now Noah understood. “The Nazis were the dragons?”

“There are many dragons, mon cher. You fought yours in the only way you knew how, but that war is over now.”

“You think so?”

Agnes walked to him and placed a wrinkled hand on his cheek. “You slew your dragons. I can see peace in your eyes.”

Laurie (L.C.) Lewis will always be a Marylander at heart—a weather-whining lover of crabs, American history, and the sea. She admits to
being craft-challenged, particularly lethal with a glue gun, and a devotee of sappy movies.

Her ninth published novel, her first romance novella, Sweet Water, was inspired by a visit to Oregon’s magnificent coastline, and time
spent with Mother Eugenie, upon whom the character Mother Thomasine is based.

Laurie’s women’s fiction novels include The Dragons of Alsace Farm (2016),
Awakening Avery (2010), and Unspoken (2004), written as Laurie Lewis. Using the pen name L.C. Lewis, she wrote the five volumes of her award-winning FREE MEN
and DREAMERS historical fiction series, set against the backdrop of the War of 1812: Dark Sky at Dawn (2007), Twilight’s Last Gleaming (2008), Dawn’s Early Light (2009), Oh, Say Can You See? (2010), and In God is Our Trust, (2011).
She is currently completing a political suspense novel planned for a summer
2017 release, a re -release of a romantic comedy, and she’s working on another historical fiction novel for a 2018 release. She loves to hear from readers.

Love and money don’t mix when three college friends launch
a fledgling business, and two impulsively elope. When Hudson Bauer hears the
wedding news he leaves town, stealing the company’s first big contract and Olivia and Jeff’s dreams. Olivia McAllister has spent eight years blaming Hudson for all her losses, including her anemic marriage to Jeff and a recent, tragic accident that leaves her body battered and her dreams of a family shattered. Widowed, and in desperate straits, she is forced to accept Hudson’s offer to recuperate at his parents’ empty house on Oregon’s Cannon Beach, but her return
to the place where the three friends once summered casts new light on her hasty marriage and on the enemy she once called friend.When Hudson offers Olivia a job doing humanitarian work, something hopeful and
familiar awakens in Olivia, giving rise to long-denied feelings for Hudson. Stuck
between grief and the promise of new love, Olivia must make peace with her
confusing past, and forgive the man she once hated, before Hudson walks away
again, closing the door on their possibilities forever.

It was true. Hudson regretted introducing the awkward University of Washington coed to Jeff almost immediately. Jeff had no interest in Liv beyond what tutoring help she could give him, but Hudson clearly remembered how quickly she morphed from a geeky scholar who was more comfortable writing HTML code than love letters to a shy beauty soon after he inserted her into the odd friendship he enjoyed with his high school jock friend, Jeff. He felt like a harness over the next four years, stabilizing two very different members of the trio while maintaining a healthy separation between Liv and Jeff. He told himself it was for the good of the work, but he knew it was more. Even though the pair showed an outward indifference to one
another, Hudson knew Liv turned herself inside out to impress Jeff.

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